by Ruth Kaufman
Crox's eyes slowly lit with recognition. Then a smile came to his weathered face. “Logan, old boy, is that you?”
Logan embraced the man. “Good Lord, Crox, don't you change at all?” he asked.
Crox slapped Logan on the back. “No need to change perfection,” he answered, stiffly. When Logan released him, he stepped back to look at him. “It's been years, lad. We were starting to wonder if you were dead.” A caw sounded from the sky, and Crox raised his eyes to it. “Oh, good heavens! You don't still have that wretched bird!”
Logan shrugged. “Can't seem to get rid of him.” He started toward the large wooden door of Cavindale Manor. “Where's Uncle? And William?”
“Master Hugh is at the castle, not to return for two days. Master William is in the fields.”
“Thanks,” Logan said.
“Logan,” Crox called. “Might I inquire what happened to your face?”
“You might,” Logan answered evasively and continued inside.
The Great Hall was strangely empty. It was as large as he remembered. To his right, the stairs to the upper apartments disappeared into blackness. Two tables lined the back wall and behind these were the kitchens. The walls of the room were whitewashed and bare. Logan felt like a stranger. He was not the same man... boy... who had lived here.
“May I help ya?” a voice wondered.
Logan turned to find a young boy standing beside him, staring at him with large dark eyes. This child was new to Cavindale Manor. Logan hadn't seen him before. But before he could answer, a booming voice came from the table at the far end of the room.
“There's no help for the likes of him!”
Logan squinted at the man clothed in a black tunic and leggings, tipped back in one of the chairs. There was something familiar about him. Logan stepped by the boy, moving toward the man. Slowly, a grin slid across Logan's face; the same grin that faced him.
“Just get him an ale,” the man instructed. “From the looks of him, he hasn't tasted one for quite some time.”
“What are you doing here, Alexander?” Logan wondered.
“Heard about Fulton and knew you'd come here,” Alexander replied, placing a booted foot on the table.
“No jobs available so you've come to harass me?” Logan asked, sitting in a chair beside him.
“I was in Lexington when Barclay's men arrived,” Alexander explained. “Apparently, you've made yourself quite indispensable to the Baron. He's willing to pay a pretty sum for your return.”
Logan shrugged slightly. “He won't find me here.”
“Are you so sure? I did.”
“You know I grew up here. He doesn't,” Logan explained.
Alexander shook his head in disapproval. “Nothing's a secret if you have enough coin. There are men willing to sell you out.”
“Only friends know about Cavindale.”
“Friends like Barclay?” Alexander wondered.
Logan clenched his teeth and looked away from Alexander toward the door. “I already told you, he doesn't know about Cavindale.”
Alexander's eyes narrowed slightly. “Is that mark on your face a gift from your friend?”
“No,” Logan replied, raising his hand to absently massage the scar. “Barclay didn't do this.”
“That's going to make it harder with the ladies, eh?”
“Perhaps one,” Logan murmured.
“Solace?”
Logan glanced up sharply at Alexander.
“Barclay's men were looking for a branded man and Farindale's daughter,” Alexander said.
Logan grit his teeth, staring off into the distance. Solace's large eyes appeared in his mind's eye, as bright as the most precious of gems. They were beguiling in an innocent, sultry way. He remembered the way her lips curved in a tender smile that seemed to brighten his day. He clenched his jaw tight against the images threatening to chip away at the wall he had erected around his heart. She hates you, remember? he asked himself.
“Why didn't you ask me, Grey?”
Logan glanced up to see Alexander staring into his mug of ale pensively. “Ask you?” Logan echoed.
“I kept waiting for you to ask me to help you retake Fulton.”
The thought hadn't even crossed his mind. Logan had no gold, nothing to offer Alexander as payment. Besides, he had Barclay to help him. “I didn't think I would need you,” Logan said.
“Didn't think you needed me?” Alexander echoed in disbelief. “The man who saved your hide from that axeman at Willow's Ridge? The man who took that arrow in the shoulder for you at Woodland Hills? You didn't need me?”
Logan shrugged. “I heard you were doing pretty well with your Gypsy hunting. And still making good coin from it, I warrant. You certainly dress better these days.”
Alexander's look sobered. “You could have used me to watch your back,” he said. “I could have helped.”
Logan stared at him for a long moment. Yes. He should have asked Alexander. He should have asked Blade or Goliath or McColl. But he had looked to Barclay, and all of Barclay's wealth and resources without nary a thought of his true friends.
The boy brought an ale and some bread, and placed them in front of Logan. Logan immediately took a long drink of the smooth ale. It wet his parched throat. Then he wiped at his lower lip with the backs of his fingers. “Yes, you could have.” Logan took another drink.
“A guest?” a voice called from the doorway. A man about Logan's age rushed in. “Why didn't someone tell me?”
Logan stood, knowing the man immediately, even though he was gazing upon William for the first time in years. His cousin was a slender man, always happy and jovial. When he entered the room, it seemed to come to life. A servant appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. Crox followed William into the room with a grin on his face.
William approached Logan. “Good day, sir,” he greeted. “I don't believe I've had the pleasure...”
“Pleasure? Last time I was here, you called me a warted piece of dung before shoving me into a trough.”
William slowed as recognition dawned on his face. “Logan? Is that you?”
“Didn't you see the falcon?”
“Ha ha!” William leapt over the table to embrace his cousin. “It's been years! Years! We thought you were dead!”
“Crox told me,” Logan said.
William pulled back to gaze at Logan's face. His smile vanished beneath a scowl as he saw the brand. “A criminal?” he wondered. “For what? Striking a noble?”
“For killing one.”
“I warned you,” William said. He shook his head, and his mane of golden hair shook with the movement. When he next locked eyes on Logan, there was sincere concern in his gaze. “Are you in danger? Do you need shelter?” he asked.
“Not hidden, but not announced either,” Logan said, glancing at Alexander meaningfully.
Alexander grinned. “I'll keep quiet.”
“Of course,” William said. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “What are you doing back here anyway? I thought you weren't returning until you could say Fulton was yours.”
The gentle mocking tone in William's voice irked Logan, and the dark cloud that had hovered about him since leaving Fulton returned. Logan took a long drink from his cup. He sloshed the liquid around in the mug. Barclay that cur, he thought. I'll have Fulton back, this I vow. It was a long moment before Logan realized William was staring at him. He raised his eyes.
“You're still obsessed with reclaiming the castle, aren't you?” William wondered.
Logan grunted softly.
“You would have been a lot more fun if you weren't so single-minded.”
“I'll have plenty of time for fun once Fulton is in my hands.”
“Logan, give it up, man!” William pleaded. “It's been thirteen years! Get on with your life!”
“I can't. Not when my mother and father were murdered. Not when –”
“It wasn't your fault, Logan,” William said softly. “How cou
ld you have known?”
“It was my fault!” Logan said, slamming the mug of ale onto the table. “If I had been there…”
Alexander lifted the mug of ale to his lips, ignoring their fight.
“You're wasting your life! Don't make it one of hate,” William said.
Logan glared at William. Some things never changed. Finally, he looked away from his cousin, battling his anger. “I don't want to fight with you again, William.”
William sighed. “What will it take to make you see how few days we really have?”
“Don't you think I've seen it? I've been in wars and sieges that have killed hundreds of men. I've seen people killed in the streets of London for nothing more than the clothes off their back. I've wasted enough time sitting and waiting. I have to get Fulton back now.”
William stared at him until Logan turned away, his fists clenched, his jaw tight. William leaned in closer to Logan, gazing at him with an intense frown.
Logan's fists tightened as he prepared himself for one of William's lectures. Finally, he turned to his cousin, fighting the anger racing through his veins.
“God's blood!” William exclaimed. “That's an ugly mark! Matches your ugly face!” A smile eased its way across William's good looks.
Surprise rocked Logan and he burst out laughing. Alexander sputtered with a mouth full of ale before his guffaws joined the merriment.
It was good to be home.
Despite William's best attempts to draw Logan into the celebration of his homecoming, including a game of chess and a lusty wench, Logan resisted, choosing to separate himself from the others.
Alexander watched Logan's brooding, pensive mood with curiosity. All the while Alexander had known him, Logan had a single purpose, a focused goal. There was only one thing he wanted, and that was Castle Fulton. Women, for instance, never held the same appeal for Logan as they did for other men. He never wooed women. When they sought him out, he used them to satisfy a need, never bedding one more than once, never thinking back upon the night of lovemaking.
Alexander had to admit that he had never seen Logan like this. It was as if he were at odds with himself. And Alexander knew it had nothing to do with Fulton.
It wasn't until everyone had retired for the night that Alexander approached Logan as he sat before the hearth, the light from the flames flickering over him. Alexander seated himself in the empty chair to Logan's right and stared at the fire for a long moment. “You miss her, don't you?” he asked, tipping back in his chair.
“No,” Logan snapped. “She can do whatever she wants. It's of no concern to me.”
The force of his denial told Alexander he had hit the mark. “You know I stopped over in Westhaven on my way from Lexington.” He watched Logan's expression harden, his eyes flash with just the right amount of interest and coolness.
“What's your point?” he demanded.
“I just thought you might want to know there's some boy in Westhaven you might consider joining forces with.”
“Boy?” Logan echoed.
“Or should I say a woman disguised, very badly I might add, to look like a boy.”
Logan's fingers tightened over the arm of the chair, his eyes pinning Alexander with a hot glare. “Is this one of your poor jokes?”
“She tried to hire me for the army she was mounting against Barclay.”
Logan's face paled to an ashen gray.
Alexander scowled at him, feigning ignorance. “Do you know her?”
“Solace,” he groaned.
“Very courageous. It's too bad she won't get to see her plan come to pass.”
“What do you mean?” Logan wondered.
“She's trying to recruit mercenaries, Logan. With no coin. She doesn't know what she's doing. And not all mercenaries are as fine and respectable as I.”
Logan rose from his chair, moving toward the hearth. He grabbed a stick resting against the brick wall of the hearth and absently rolled it between his fingers. “She's going to get herself killed.”
Alexander shifted slightly in his chair. “I thought you didn't care.”
“I don't,” Logan snarled. He shoved the stick into the burning logs and the flames exploded upward with a hissing screech.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Solace sat in the far corner of the Wolf's Inn, staring at the motley assortment of men who inhabited the tables. One, a hooded monk garbed in a dark brown robe, probably on his way to the Abbey of St. Michael, sat at the table closest to the door. Another was a peasant with a mug of ale clutched tightly in his fist as he lay slumped over a table, sleeping soundly. A third man was a fighter, from the looks of his scarred face. He ate with his head down, shoveling the food into his mouth.
Solace stared at the man, ignoring the rabbit stew in the bowl before her. She gently bit her lower lip, pulling the cloak around her face. She hated having to bind her breasts, but she kind of liked the breeches. They had been itchy at first, but two weeks later she had become accustomed to them and was enjoying the privacy they offered. Her friends, Mitch and Geoffrey, had taken her in immediately, and she had come up with the disguise of an apprentice.
Now, if she could only recruit a mercenary, she would be on her way to taking back her castle. She knew she had to be careful. She couldn't just walk in and hire the first mercenary she saw. She had developed a plan. She would sum up the inn early in the evening, before most of the patrons had retired. Then she would approach one man a night until she had an entourage.
The door opened, letting in the last rays of the setting sun. A chill wind weaved its way into the inn, twirling around Solace until the fire warmed it and it disappeared. Autumn was coming to a close; winter was almost here. Solace knew she couldn't mount a successful attack against Fulton in the dead of winter. Her time was running out.
A man filled the doorway. He was two heads taller than the innkeeper who greeted him. His face was hidden by a hood. Solace's eyes narrowed slightly. He had a sword strapped to his waist. One of Barclay's men? Solace wondered. But he wore no colors, no crest.
The innkeeper pointed to a table just in front of her. The man made his way toward her, and Solace's breath caught in her throat as he moved. Each step was filled with graceful power. He paused just before he got to her table, and Solace could have sworn he brushed her with a guarded look before he swept his cloak out and sat in the chair.
She couldn't see his face at all, but she could see his hands as they eased his sword to the side.
He must be a mercenary, she thought. Wearing a sword and chain mail. A mercenary who was doing quite well. He would be an asset to her army.
The innkeeper brought him an ale.
Solace waited until the man had a few sips of his drink, then stood and approached him. His face was hidden in the shadows cast by his hood, as she imagined her own face was. She noticed how his large hands encircled the mug. The image of those hands around a neck came to mind, and she shivered. But she needed him. The moment stretched out, and she indicated the empty chair across from him. “May I?” she inquired.
She saw the hood move and took it as a nod. She slid into the chair opposite him, folding her hands in front of her. She tried to see into the recessed depths of the hood, but couldn't. She should have taken comfort in knowing this because that meant he could not see beyond her disguise, but somehow not being able to see his face made her all the more cautious. She could be dealing with the devil for all she knew.
“You're a mercenary?” she asked, knowing the answer.
Again, he nodded his head.
Solace frowned slightly. Couldn't he talk? “I'd like to hire you,” she added.
The man was silent for a long moment, then slowly lifted his head a bit higher.
Solace could feel the gaze of his hidden eyes penetrating her to her very soul.
“I'm a killer,” he told her, his voice a deep, menacing rumble. “I'm just as likely to slit your pale throat as to have a cup of ale with you.” He took a drink fro
m his mug. “Depends on my mood.”
The timbre of his voice shook her from head to toe. “And...” she started, somewhat hesitantly. “Do you feel like another ale?” She placed a coin on the table top.
He slammed his hand down atop hers, trapping the gold beneath her palm.
Unnerved by his actions, Solace yanked her hand back, hiding it in her lap.
He took the coin and put it into the worn leather pouch at his waist. “I'm not thirsty,” he said.
Solace swallowed hard, her stomach knotted tight with trepidation. She dredged up every last ounce of courage to ask. “Are you for hire or not?”
“Maybe I've already been hired. Have you thought of that?” He took another drink of ale and slowly set the cup down on the table.
A feeling of alarm made the nape of Solace's neck tingle. “Then, if you're already hired, I'll be going,” she said and rose. There is no way he could know who I am, she told herself, trying to calm her pounding heart.
The man thrust his arm across the table and grabbed her wrist, forcing her back down onto her seat. “I didn't say that I wasn't available.” He released her wrist and tapped the leather pouch at his waist. “Besides, where there's one, there's usually another.”
Solace took a deep breath. She wasn't going to tell him she had no coin to pay him with. “Are you for hire or not?” she demanded a bit sharply. He was making her nervous.
“Let's just say I'm intrigued.” The man flashed her two rows of white teeth in what could have been either a snarl or a smile; she wasn't sure which. “You obviously haven't done this kind of thing before,” he told her. “Terms aren't discussed in a public place. You never know who might be listening or watching. Do you have a place where we can talk?”
His words bothered Solace more than she was willing to admit. It was true, she knew nothing of hiring men. Nonetheless, she wasn't a fool. She wasn't going anywhere with this man. It was too dangerous. “No,” she said, trying to sound sure of herself. “This place will do fine.”